Best Friend or Boyfriend?
'' Best Friend or Boyfriend ''is the second book of the Middle School Experience series. It takes place a week and a half after the events of ''First Experiences ''and focuses on Jessie and Freddy's friendship, which is put to the test when Clarissa Simpson starts interfering with them and when Jessie starts to develop feelings for Freddy. Jessie Sanchez is a tomboy who would trade romance for cleats any time. Her childhood best friend, Freddy, is a boy whom she considers her brother, and she couldn’t imagine him otherwise. But when a Popular Sensation begins to covet Freddy, Jessie is less than thrilled and more than jealous. Even worse, Freddy begins to spend less time with her and begins acting weird. Will Jessie find out what’s going on between Freddy and Clarissa—and will she figure out if she likes Freddy as more than “a friend”? Summary The story begins with Jessie at soccer practice. The soccer team, the Lakewood Lancers, are split in half and are playing a practice game. Jessie scores the winning goal for her team, and two of her teammates, Leslie and Melissa, congratulate her; the other teammates, Sally and Camryn, do not. After practice, Coach Edwin praises some of the girls on their skills, and the majority of her praises go to Jessie, who is her favorite player. Coach Edwin explains to the players that they will be playing in their first Lakewood soccer game in two weeks, something that the girls are excited about. When the girls are dismissed, they go to the locker room so they can change out of their practice clothes. They talk about the upcoming game, but when Jessie tries to get involved in the conversation, she is shut down and ridiculed by Sally and Camryn. The girls then begin to talk about Skye's birthday party, which Jessie had not been invited to. Feeling left out, Jessie decides to leave and go to the carpool lane. There, she meets up with her best friend Freddy, who had been at soccer practice for the boys' team. Freddy informs Jessie that his team is playing in their first game next week. As they wait for their parents to pick them up, Sally, Camryn, and a few other girls from Jessie's team flirt with Freddy, which is something Jessie is not comfortable with. However, to her dismay, Freddy doesn't seem to mind the flirting. Jessie's mother Cecelia arrives to take Jessie home, and Jessie tells her about the game. Jessie makes plans to invite her family, including her grandmother Rosa, to the game. The following Monday, Jessie and Freddy talk about their upcoming soccer games to their friend, Robbie. All three of them promise to attend each other's games. Robbie later leaves to finish homework, and Jessie decides to help Freddy finish his Spanish homework. As they walk to the school library, they run into Clarissa Simpson. Clarissa flirtatiously asks Freddy to tutor her in Spanish, and Freddy says yes, albeit reluctantly. Jessie does not trust Clarissa and begins to worry for Freddy. During lunch, Jessie tells her girlfriends about the game and invites them to attend. As they eat, they notice Clarissa asking Freddy to eat lunch with her. When Jessie expresses her disapproval of this, Arabella begins to tease Jessie, saying that she's jealous that Clarissa is becoming closer to Freddy, but Jessie brushes this off. Jessie begins to feel worried after Freddy begins spending his free time with Clarissa. In Spanish class one day, she confronts him about it, and Freddy explains that he had to put more time into tutoring because Clarissa is an incompetent student. Jessie feels relieved at this news, but is shocked when she begins to have affectionate thoughts about Freddy. To make matters worse, Clarissa continues to flirt with Freddy. When class begins, the teacher, Señora Lopez announces that there is a two-part test next Wednesday and to prepare for it, the class will be playing Pictionary. She asks the class to form teams of four, and Jessie and Freddy team up together. Unfortunately, Clarissa and Mary-Kate join their team, much to Jessie's dismay. Throughout the game, Jessie has to endure Clarissa and Mary-Kate's stupidity and Clarissa's intent to flirt with Freddy. Clarissa ends up losing the game for their team, and Jessie explodes at her and blames Freddy for being a bad tutor. Señora Lopez kicks Jessie out of the classroom and gives her detention, causing her to miss a day of soccer practice. After class, Freddy tries to comfort Jessie, but blames Jessie for losing control. Jessie shuts him down and walks away, upset. The next day, Jessie has to tell Coach Edwin that she has detention, which angers the coach. Later, she runs into Freddy and Robbie, but Freddy runs away when he sees her. The following week, when Jessie returns to practice, Coach Edwin criticizes her lack of strategic skills. In the locker room, Camryn and Sally, who are also in Jessie's Spanish class, gossip to the rest of her teammates about her and Freddy, which angers Jessie. On Wednesday morning, Jessie spots Freddy and Clarissa together, but Freddy runs away when he sees her. Jessie tries to talk to Chloe, Leah, and Gail about her situation, but Leah and Chloe tell her that she likes him, which annoys her. Gail's crush, Blake, walks up to the girls. Blake, who is also in Jessie's Spanish class, reminds Jessie about the test, which she had forgotten to study for. Leah, Chloe, and Jessie decide to give Blake and Gail some alone time and decide to walk around the hallway until homeroom begins. After spotting Freddy talking with Sally and Camryn and noticing the girls' fancy dresses, Jessie asks her friends to give her a makeover. They go to the bathroom and Leah and Chloe apply eye and lip makeup to Jessie's face, but Jessie is ridiculed by Lindsay and Mary-Kate, who are also in the bathroom. Lindsay calls Jessie a poser and says that Clarissa is dating Freddy, and Jessie almost fights her. She begins to self-doubt herself, but Leah and Chloe reassure her that she looks fine. When the bell rings for homeroom, the girls meet up again with Blake and Gail, but Jessie notices Clarissa giving Gail a menacing look; she is not happy to see Gail hanging out with Blake, her ex-boyfriend. Later, Chloe gives Jessie a dress that her housekeeper had brought from home to wear. Jessie gets a lot of positive attention on her new look, but is disappointed that a lot of her peers care more about her new look than her achievements in soccer. In social studies, Alex fears that Jessie is changing her look to fit in with the Popular Sensations (something her former best friend Marylin did) but Jessie reassures her that she is doing this for herself. In Spanish, Jessie shows off her new look to Freddy, but Freddy is disgusted by it, saying that it's not her. Heartbroken, Jessie walks away and tries not to cry. Her sadness distracts her from focusing on her Spanish test. She begins to think that she might be jealous of Clarissa. That evening, Jessie learns that she had failed her Spanish test. The next day, she gets a ride to school from her mom, and decides to eat school breakfast with Leslie and Melissa. Leslie and Melissa inform Jessie that they had gone to the sixth grade boys' soccer game, but the Lancers lost when the opposing goalie caught the ball when Freddy attempted to score the winning goal. Jessie begins to feel guilty for not attending the game and supporting her friend. One of the girls' teammates, Marcia, walks up to the girls and tells Melissa and Leslie about a party that she is throwing after their game, but acts strange when Jessie tries to invite herself. Leslie and Melissa reluctantly tell Jessie that she isn't invited and that Sally and Camryn had told Marcia to leave her off the guest list. Jessie becomes very upset at her friends for not telling her about this and accuses them of pitying her. She walks away and runs into Sally's clique. Sally is rude to her, and Jessie snaps and calls her out on her jealousy. Jessie feels a little better after venting her frustrations, but she is upset that none of her teammates like her. During lunch, the girls talk about the upcoming soccer game, which Jessie is not excited about anymore. Her friends think that her glum attitude is due to her jealousy of Clarissa and her feelings towards Freddy, but Jessie denies it and snaps at them. She spots Freddy sitting at Clarissa's lunch table and decides to confront Clarissa once and for all. Clarissa seems unbothered by Jessie until she mentions that she is using Freddy to make Blake jealous. Clarissa tells Jessie that she doesn't have the right to talk about boys or jealousy because she is jealous of her relationship with Freddy. Furious, Jessie dumps Clarissa's lunch all over her rival. Clarissa swears revenge on Jessie as she walks away. Jessie tries to talk to Freddy, but Freddy runs off. Jessie believes that he is going to help Clarissa clean up, and is forced to admit that she lost Freddy to Clarissa. She walks to the girls' bathroom and cries. The next day, Jessie attends Coach Edwin's team breakfast in the cafeteria, but she feels ignored and left out by her teammates. When school begins, she has several run-ins with Freddy and ends up running away in the opposite direction. Unfortunately, she cannot avoid him in Spanish, where he tells her that he needs to talk to her after class. Halfway throughout class, the fire alarm goes off and the class goes outside for a fire drill. Outside, Freddy apologizes to Jessie for not listening to her about Clarissa and admits that she was right about Clarissa being jealous of Gail. When the fire drill is over, Jessie admits that she likes Freddy, but she is afraid that he won't feel the same and fears that their friendship is over. After Spanish, Freddy tells Jessie that he likes her, but he was afraid to tell her, too. They realize that their friendship is no longer the same, but they are willing to stay friends for now until they are ready for a relationship. Jessie stays after school so she can get ready for the soccer game. When she walks to the locker room, she runs into Melissa and Leslie. Jessie explains to them how she felt about being ostracized, and they apologize for not sticking up for her. Later, as she is getting dressed, Jessie is confronted by Sally and Camryn, who apologize for their antics and admit that they were jealous of her. Coach Edwin comes into the locker room and gives a speech to the players before they go out onto the field. Jessie's friends, parents, and grandmother come out to support her. The team plays a very close game against the Chadwood Cheetahs and end up winning by one point, with Jessie scoring the last goal. After the game, Jessie embraces her teammates. Coach Edwin expresses to the girls how proud she is of them and almost starts crying. Marcia invites Jessie to her party, and Jessie finally feels like she belongs on the team. She, Leslie, and Melissa decide to shower and change so they can go to Marcia's party together. However, Jessie runs into her friends and family, who congratulate her for winning the game. Jessie thanks them and tells them that she has to get ready for Marcia's party and walks away. She walks by herself to the locker room when she begins to have the feeling that someone is following her; however, there is no one there when she turns around. While she is still walking, someone pushes her. As she is regaining her footing, she falls over a large tree branch, hits her head on the ground, and loses consciousness. When Jessie wakes up, she learns that her dad is taking her to the hospital. Her dad explains that Freddy and some of her soccer teammates found her unconscious with a bloody and puffy left ankle. At the hospital, the doctor informs her that she had sprained her ankle and will have to be inactive for a week and a half. Jessie is very disapppointed but confused as why a branch was in her path. As she and her father are leaving the hospital, they run into Freddy, who had come to visit Jessie. Jessie informs him that she is fine and tells him that she had tripped over a branch. Freddy tells her that the "branch" was actually Lindsay and Mary-Kate's legs, and the person who had pushed her was Lindsay's boyfriend. He explains that he overheard the girls talking to Clarissa about a plan, and Jessie realized that Clarissa had gotten revenge on her after spilling her secret during lunch on Thursday. She is very upset but Freddy informs her that he had emailed the principal about Clarissa's scheme, and Jessie begins to feel a little better about Clarissa getting her payback. When they reach the Sanchezes' car, Jessie opens up the front passenger seat and sees a card and a bouquet of flowers, which are from Freddy. She reads the card, which is a sweet message about her following her dreams to becoming a soccer star at Lakewood, and hugs Freddy. Jessie is glad that she and Freddy are still close even though their dynamic has changed Characters (in order of appearance) * Jessie Sanchez * Melissa Temiar * Kay Flynn * Skye Walters * Jenny Partridge * Leslie Morgan * Sally Cantle * Camryn Lovett * Coach Edwin * Marcia Gonzalez * Kristen Reeves * Jordan Berg * Freddy Hamilton * Cecelia Sanchez * Robbie James * Clarissa Simpson * Chloe Winters * Gail Edwards * Leah Harrison * Ellie Jackson * Alex Sanders * Arabella Wilson * Señora Lopez * Blake Spinelli * Mary-Kate Lucas * Lindsay Shapiro * Daniel Sanchez * Rosa Garcia Trivia *This story was rewritten four times. The first edition was written in 2008 as the first book of the series, but the third edition in 2012 was written as the second book of the series. It still remains the second book (current edition was finished in September 2015). *Things have changed from the first edition to the current fourth one. The soccer team was originally going to be co-ed, with Jessie and Freddy on the same team. Jordan Berg was originally going to be a boy, and Marcia Gonzalez was going to be "Marco Gonzalez". Coach Edwin was also going to be a male coach. Category:Stories